


Pretty Damn Good

by neutronstarcollision



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Gen, M/M, Toronto Maple Leafs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 23:13:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9040193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neutronstarcollision/pseuds/neutronstarcollision
Summary: Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner reflect on the draft lotteries that brought them to the Leafs.





	

A lot of their evenings ended this way - both of them sprawled out on Mitch’s couch, one of them putting the controller down (usually Auston) and then the conversation would go from chirps about the other’s Call of Duty skills (with Mitch doing most of the chirping) to hockey, because they were both obsessed with it, of course. Tonight, they were reliving last night’s overtime win against the Oilers.

“I texted Davo after the game, just to chirp him a bit,” Mitch mentioned, grinning.

“You didn’t,” Auston responded, raising a brow to express his mock outrage. “You chirped a guy who lost his first game against his childhood team?”

Auston was only half-kidding. In the few weeks that he had spent with Connor on Team North America playing at the ACC, he could tell that, however much he had embraced the Oilers and Edmonton, playing in Toronto meant a lot to Connor. More than Auston suspected that he could possibly understand.

Mitch laughed, reaching over to the coffee table to take a sip from his coffee, brushing his left leg against Auston’s right leg. Auston willed himself to ignore it, just as he had been doing for weeks every time Mitch had made any type of physical contact with him. Mitch had absolutely no personal boundaries when it came to stuff like this, Auston reminded himself. It didn’t mean anything.

“Nah, Davo knows that it’s all in good fun. He’s probably going to score a hat trick here the next time they come to town, so don’t feel too bad for him. He’ll be extra motivated. Scoring at the ACC is his dream, you know.”

Auston _did_ know, and he also knew that it was Mitch’s dream. He had seen it in his eyes the first time they stepped out on ACC ice back in the fall - that wide-eyed _shit I’ve made it_ look that he just couldn’t hide, no matter how much he tried to. Brown, Hyman and Corrado, too. Even Kadri too, sometimes, and Naz had been a Leaf for a few years now. All the local guys had this starry-eyed reverence for the ACC, and for the sweater that they pulled over their heads before every game.

Some of the other guys on the team chirped the local guys for being fanboys at heart, but Auston didn’t. He got it. He supposed that he’d feel the same when he played his first game on Coyotes ice, but beyond that, having lived here for a few months now, he understood what made being a Leaf special. It was that historic connection to the team that people here had, through generations, in a city where pretty much everyone was, to varying extents, a Leafs fan. It had really hit home for him when Brownie had told him that his grandparents had been Leafs fans, and their parents before them. That was pretty fucking special, and Auston never chirped any of the local guys on the team about it.

“Must have been hard for him at the draft lottery, with the Leafs being so close to winning,” Auston said, absentmindedly, sitting up in the couch so that he could grab his coffee mug. “I can’t imagine what that was like for him.”

“Dude, you’re probably closest to understanding how that feels,” Mitch said, turning his body so that he was facing Auston on the couch. “Wasn’t that the same way you felt when the Coyotes lost out on you?”

Auston could feel Mitch’s eyes on him, which made Auston want to blush but dammit, he was a professional hockey player, not a teenage boy with a crush, and he was _not_ going to blush.

They hadn’t talked about the draft lottery before. Oh, they had talked about the draft itself, and Mitch had chirped him a million times about being a first overall pick diva. But for some reason, and Auston didn’t know what that reason was, they had never talked about the draft lottery before.

“Yeah, I guess so…” Auston shrugged, taking a sip of coffee. “But the Coyotes only had the seventh highest odds or something, so at the end of the regular season, I kinda knew that the chances of them winning were kind of slim. And I didn’t know if Laine was going to go first instead…”

“Oh shut up, Matts, you knew you were going first,” Mitch rolled his eyes, shaking his head fondly - Auston wasn’t imagining that look, it really was _fondly_ \- at him.

“Laine could have gone first,” Auston shook his head.

“But he didn’t, because the Leafs aren’t morons,” Mitch rolled his eyes again. “But continue…” he gestured, as if to say _go on_ , and took a sip of his coffee.

Auston continued. “It would have been awesome to play for the Coyotes, but you know, I talked to a few people and they convinced me that Toronto was the next best place I could go, if I couldn’t go home.”

“Well of course,” Mitch grinned that infectious grin of his, nudging Auston with his elbow. “ _I’m_ here.”

Auston felt his heart tighten, but he had to play it cool, so he laughed and said, “You’re full of shit, you know that?”

Of course Auston hadn’t wanted to go to Toronto because of Mitch, but he couldn’t deny that Mitch was now one of his favourite things about Toronto, not that he was ever going to admit that to anyone, especially Mitch.

“What, no denial? See, I _am_ the reason that you wanted to come to Toronto,” Mitch chirped him, grinning widely. “Wait until I mention that in my next interview.”

“You wish, Marns,” Auston scoffed, trying again not to blush.

“Well then, what was it, if not for you dying to play with me?” Mitch gave him a faux-flirtatious wink. If Auston didn’t know Mitch any better, he would take this as Mitch flirting with him, but Mitch pulled that faux-flirtatious air with about half the team, Auston reminded himself. That was just Mitch’s way.

Auston rolled his eyes at him. “Something about a historic franchise, a chance to do something big here, hockey centre of the universe, a really cool city, Babs - though don’t tell him I said that, a young team…”

“I know the truth, Matts. You can give me your media-friendly answer but I know why you wanted to come here.” Mitch gave him a knowing look that was so serious that Auston felt self-conscious, like his secret had been exposed, but then Mitch laughed and Auston relaxed.

“You’re the worst,” Auston told him, laughing. Mitch always knew how to make him laugh and Auston loved/hated him for it.

“I’m the best, and you know it,” Mitch beamed smugly. “But seriously, were you disappointed when Toronto won the lottery? You don’t have to lie to me, you know. I already know that you grew up with terrible taste in teams,” he added, unable to resist a chirp about Auston’s taste in baseball and basketball teams. Mitch was a Toronto boy through and through - it was all Jays and Raptors all the time, and he had no patience for Auston’s pre-existing team loyalties.

Auston rolled his eyes at him and continued, leaning back on the couch. “I wasn’t. I had already accepted that Arizona probably wasn’t going to win, and was hoping that Toronto would beat out the other teams. None of the other teams with high lottery odds seemed to be a fit for me. So to be honest, I think I’ve had an easier time than Connor.”

This was the truth. Auston had been both excited and relieved when Toronto had won. All the factors that he had listed for Mitch were true. Arizona would have been a childhood dream come true, and he would have been so excited to play there, but the more mature side of Auston knew that if he played in Arizona and won there, it would be great, but it wouldn’t be a Big Thing the way winning in Toronto would be. And he wanted to do Big Things. And while he didn’t care much about the fame or attention that came from playing in this hockey-mad market, he also didn’t want to be forgotten every night playing in Arizona, which is what would likely have happened. He saw that all the time with Doan in Arizona and guys in smaller, non-traditional markets - they were kind of forgotten, and no one outside the fanbase seemed to care how those teams were doing. Auston didn’t need attention, but he wanted to matter, and he wouldn’t have mattered in Arizona, not the way he matters in a city like this that wants nothing more than its hockey team to do The Thing. His Arizona loyalty prevented him from sharing this with anyone - but it was the truth.

Mitch nodded. “I get that. Davo was...I don’t know how to say it. He’s always a pro, but you could just see his disappointment, you know? And he never said anything to me, because he’s too polite to say _I wish that they had drafted me instead of you_ but we all knew that he was disappointed - me, Stromer, all those guys who grew up playing here with and against him. I think he was maybe kinda relieved that Arizona took Stromer, to be honest, because I don’t know if he’d have been able to watch his best friend drafted by their hometown team…”

“But you guys are tight too,” Auston interjected. “Couldn't have been easy for him to see you drafted by the Leafs.”

Auston would never admit it, but there was something about Connor, Dylan and Mitch that he kind of envied. He was friends with a few other NHL guys not on the Leafs - Eichel and Larkin, for example - but he didn't have that inexplicable bond borne out of years of playing with and against each other, not like Connor, Dylan and Mitch did.

“Yeah, but it’s not the same as him and Stromer. They’re…” Mitch paused, apparently thinking of the right words, “...each other’s other half, you know? And I don’t know that he’d be able to watch his other half drafted by his favourite team without feeling conflicted.”

“What was it like with him on draft day after you got drafted?” Auston asked Mitch, curiously.

“It was weird. Davo is the best guy. You know him too, you know what I mean…”

Auston nodded. “He is, he’s a beauty.”

And he was. Auston was a bit starstruck when he met Connor for the first time during Team North America training camp. He was, after all, Connor Fucking McDavid, a generational player, the next Sidney Crosby, the next face of the NHL, the hometown boy that Leafs fans would always wish that they had been able to draft, the guy that Leafs fans were all counting down the days to free agency for, and in some ways, the guy that Auston was only a substitute for - but within minutes, Connor had put him at ease. He had treated Auston like an equal, without an ounce of condescension, had made sure that he felt comfortable with the rest of the team, and had jokingly congratulated him on being drafted to “the second best team in the league”. Auston liked Connor a lot and knew why Mitch and the other guys who knew him loved him. He was just one of those guys who inspired loyalty, and weeks into knowing him, Auston felt that sense of loyalty to him too.

“Right? So of course he congratulated me on draft day like the champ that he is. He told me to bring the Cup home one day for the sake of all his family and friends in Toronto. But there was something...I don’t know...a bit, what’s the word - _melancholy_ \- about the whole thing. He looked _wistful_ ,” Mitch said, looking thoughtful. “And it sucked to see Davo like that.”

Thoughtful Mitch was just as beautiful to him as smiling, joking Mitch, Auston noted, but then he shut that down. Now was _not_ the time for him to start thinking about which version of Mitch was his favourite one.

“I can imagine," Auston nodded. He _did_ feel bad for Connor, especially since he genuinely liked him, but it did no one any good to dwell on that now.

"Well, if the Leafs had won the lottery, you wouldn’t be a Leaf, so don’t feel _too_ bad for Connor. Every man for himself,” he reminded Mitch, deadpanning.

“Harsh but true. That’s the Auston Matthews killer instinct for you, eh?” Mitch laughed.

Auston laughed too. “Exactly.”

“And if the Leafs had drafted Connor, they probably wouldn’t have won the draft lottery and drafted you, so I guess we have Davo’s bad luck to thank for where we are right now, which is pretty damn good.” Mitch gave Auston a light punch in the arm, and Auston basked in Mitch’s wide grin.

Things _were_ pretty damn good right now, Auston reflected. He was hanging out with one of his favourite people in the world, their team had just beat a surging Oilers team led by one of the best players in the league the night before, and he and Mitch - yes, he and Mitch - were going to do some Big Things together one day.

Auston smiled at Mitch, the kind of smile that he could barely contain. “Yeah, it's pretty damn good.”


End file.
